So if I agree that we are posting comments on the internet, does this imply that we are looking for attention? Yes and no!
I consider it to merely be a communications medium, and communication need not involve egoism and other such personal problems.
Except that most games arenât made by âthe industryâ, and donât use marketing/publicity people. Although many industry people have expressed hostility to me over this on the grounds that âthose examples donât matterâ.
If youâre making games for a profit, youâre in the industry. My point was only to say my idea of what gamergate is about is different from what has been portrayed in the media, and to that I can see how reviews are biased while I do not see the unfairness in the workplace.
A question: Do you think that your perspective might somehow be compromised by the fact that you are one of the ones who have benefitted from the system as it currently exists?
If you mean by benefited as employed, no I donât think I have anymore bias than anyone else. Iâve seen what goes on in the companies that Iâve worked at, big and small. Iâm all for equality in the workplace. I think online harassing is awful, and I think there is a level of immaturity on both sides. I donât like twitter⌠maybe thatâs my bias.
And, just so I know what youâre talking about. What is your idea of what GG is about?
The reason I ask the question is that I have a background in education. A common critique of a The Educational System is that it has been designed, operated, and maintained by a group of people who themselves are largely the models for success in the system. To be a teacher means that you have passed through all the filters that weed out individuals that donât mesh with that system. This backdrop frames the issue at the core of educational reform debates: how do you change a system that is made up people that benefitted most from its establishment?
Itâs not that there is a conspiracy, or that teachers themselves are bad; but as a gestalt, the system self-supports some implicit assumptions, chiefly the definition of success, the nature of education, and educationâs role in society.
This line of thinking is why I have problems with statements like âwho cares if they are male or female! Just hire quality employees!â, or the pledge to âmake great gamesâ listed above. They evade self-reflection by avoiding a discussion of implicit biases.
I agree. Iâm coming from the perspective of in my experience Iâve had female superiors in every job Iâve had.
The game companies Iâve worked at are very diverse. The only exception to that is one Japanese based company, that I personally felt they were somewhat biased against the American employees but gender did not play a role ( I loved working there regardless). I think it matters nowadays that you are creative and hard working and thatâs it.
My understanding is Gamergate has alot of issues, but the main one is collusion and unfair practices in the media when it comes to rating games.
While Iâd love for you to be right, I think itâs empirically provable that your experience is nonstandard. There are a lot more men than women in tech in general and game design in particular. Men in tech make more money than women in equivalent positions do. Men in tech are perceived to be go-getters when they are assertive, whereas women fight the âbitchâ label.
Thereâs a lot going on in our culture, from the largest formulation of âcultureâ to the narrowest, that serves to marginalize or erase the experience of women. Hopefully weâre making progress, but thereâs still a long way to go.
I never said anything about the ratios of men vs women, I only said women were treated equally at the places Iâve worked. This includes 2 producers and 2 vice presidents not to mention artists, designers, testers, marketing, biz dev, ect. It is true I havenât seen too many programmers but I am not going to assume why that is. This is a legitimate debate, but sort of different of what I though gamergate was really about.
Why are people still compelled to ask why other people are âspeaking outâ?
If the issue in question is truly âon the ashheap of historyâ, then the âspeaking outâ will be as mundane a non-event as (say) mentioning that DCC was better audio quality than MiniDisc.
I mean, suppose Boing Boing posted an article about old dead audio formats. Would you be rushing to the discussion thread to ask âWhy are people still compelled to discuss the MiniDisc audio quality issue?â I rather doubt it.
When something is really on the ashheap of history, people stop talking about it naturally, without needing to have their conversations questioned.
The GeekDad pledge appears to be directed toward the larger issue of sexism and harassment in gaming, of which Gamergate is only one symptom. To that end, if your point is
âWhat, youâre still on that sexism in gaming thing? When are you going to let it go?â
Then the reasonable response is
âWhen sexism is no longer a pervasive problem in gaming.â
i.e. âActually, itâs about ethics in video game journalismâ.
But everyone here knows that thatâs not the main issue when you look at what GamerGate folks actually talk about, and it wasnât one of the issues GamerGate had anything to do with when it started.
So, are you astroturfing, or were you suckered by a bunch of trollies?
Thatâs what I sorta meant but I guess I said it the wrong way. I started following it from the âmediaâ standpoint (harassing, misogyny) and then took some time to look at the other side (ethics in journalism). While I like a good debate, these are 2 totally different subjects. Honestly, Iâve been rather leery of what the media has been reporting in general and Iâve seen some of the perks gaming journalists get.
They heard the concern and changed it. Itâs much better now.
OK, now I know what youâre talking about!
I think the geekdad post addresses GG, it addresses the very thing that started GG. Lets face it, the only thing that GG has been successful at is driving women out of their homes. It makes sense that this is the thing that gets addressed.
I know you donât agree that this is what GG is about, but you donât have to agree for this next bit to be true:
GG has not successfully raised awareness about âEthics in games journalismâ, it has not raised awareness about corruption in game reviews, its only gossiped about it but has not actually attempted to even document specific cases and denounce the people or companies who are involved and in what ways it affects reviews.
Heck, Iâve layed out a better roadmap for GG to actually talk about âethics in games journalismâ in my last paragraph than GG has even dared to suggest at any point in its history, not at the beginning when there was outrage that Zoey Quinnâs ex boyfriend alleged that she traded sex for positive reviews, and not now that he said its not true and gaters want to forget thatâs the reason GG came to be about âethics in games journalismâ
Look, I donât care if you want to talk about game reviews and how to stop bad review practices. But nobody in GG is serious about these things, no matter how much they claim to care about them. There are no people able to talk about âethics in games journalismâ in the GG crowd, all Iâve seen is people claiming that its about ethics in games journalism and not doing anything meaningful about it. and for all their efforts they wonât see how badly everything theyâve tried has failed.
TL;DR
without getting into what GG is about, Iâll just say that GG hasnât been effective at doing anything about ratings in games. It has only managed to harass women. This post addressed that.
Not only that, but product reviews are easily the least interesting and most biased areas of game journalism. Video games are a trade with all of the usual coverage. And the technical stuff, which is never very sensational. How about optimizing drivers and OpenGL shaders? Are all of the tech paper corrupt also?
Reviews are barely even journalism in the first place.
Cool, thatâs a fair enough point. Itâs not that I agree or disagree I just know what I have seen personally in the workplace. Iâll come right out and say it, it all sounds like immature people who have way too much time on their hands to tweet each other stupid memes⌠on both sides. Now the press, just being the press is going to hype the story any way they want giving games and gamers a bad name.
I would submit that a review isnât necessarily journalism, but that doesnât mean all reviews arenât journalism.
A proper journalistic review should be like that of a consumer product review, where reviewers donât accept advertising from companies whose products they review, they donât get free samples or other perks of the products they review, and the review itself is informed of similar competitorsâ products so that they can be compared side by side.
In the video games industry, this type of reviewing is non-existent (they are awash in industry advertising, free perks, free products, and self-interested bias), but it does exist in other circles.
So there really is an âethics in game journalismâ issue. Itâs just that gamergate is so compromised as a cover for rapist, murderous misogynists it serves no meaningful function in that debate.
